Give Angelique a dry home

MSAADA has received an impassioned plea from Rwamagana to help Genocide survivor Angelique Kantarama to rehabilitate her leaking and crumbling home.

The cry for support came from neighbours of Angelique, who told Msaada that many of the widows in their community are being forgotten as Rwanda attempts to move on from the effects of the appalling 1994 genocide.

As the country progresses, sympathy for the survivors is declining, according to the local community leaders.

Angelique is one of those who has been left behind.

Her house is in a dreadful condition and the rusting tin roof leaks when it rains.

Rwanda is now in one of its rainy seasons and the rain comes in through Angelique’s roof daily. This means that very often she can’t sleep as the floor of her house is flooded.

She is just one of many widows in this distressing predicament and the local community in Rwamagana has urged Msaada not to turns its back on these traumatised survivors.

All of Angelique’s relalatives were murdered in 1994, including her husband and eight children.

Msaada appeals to you, our supporters, to help us to help Angelique and other forgotten survivors of the genocide to bring their crumbling homes up to a liveable standard so they may see out their days in some minor degree of comfort.

The cost of putting down a solid floor over the current mud floor, plastering the walls, replacing the roof and upgrading the windows and doors costs £2,000 per home.

Any contribution you can make to this urgently needed rehabilitation will be very gratefully received.

While Msaada concentrates on our dairy cow project, which lifts impoverished families out of poverty permanently, we cannot turn our backs on these vulnerable widows, who don’t have the resources to receive or look after a cow.

Msaada’s very first project in Rwanda back in 2005 was to support some of these widows and to help make life bearable for them. The widows’ representatives have appealed to us, once again, not to forget our oldest friends in Rwamagana.